Zero Someones

The pun-ish title refers to how the drawing shows the economy of scale—layers of executives—leads to the losing sight by the managers of the humanity they share with the managed. And not only the managers, but the managers of managers and the managers of managers’ money.

These mangers of managers, etc. look mostly to where they want to go; they only look back to see who’s gaining on them. They know every detail of their boss’s life style; they fantasize wearing that suit (of armor) while, at the same time, looking for chinks in it. They may still remember the names of former coworkers at the lever they just left, but further down or back, the people there are just positions, or worse mere expenses.

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Our so-called representative democracy is designed to protect us from threats to our lives, liberty and our pursuits of happiness. Its laws seem to try to, in theory, balances notions of libertarianism and utilitarianism in a way that lets individuals “follow [their] bliss” as long as they don’t interfere with someone else doing the same. This was an improvement over previous styles of government, but it does have a weakness. The founding fathers thought themselves to be empathetic, yet above it all, that they could put the greater good ahead of their own. As a consequence of this self-delusion they didn’t put many safeguards in place to deal with those so drawn who are not so created.

Those old guys thought regular elections would be a sufficient reality test to keep politicians aware and even beholden to and empathic with their constituency; that the every couple of years convincing those folks that they have been doing good by them, and should be allowed to continue, would do the trick.

It’s sad to say that democracy is no reality test; it seems to be no more than frosting on a cake of corporate-made ingredients. Given the nature of campaign finance these days, politicians are essentially corporate employees. It’s hard to believe that we think that voting for one of two [invisible] hand-picked parven(e)u(e)s will elect us a diplomat or statesperson? Beneath the smiles and outside of occasional photo-ops in our world, these political climbers are no different from corporate ones.

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Where was I? Oh yeah, the drawing. It shows people as pawns with limited moves and the first to be sacrificed and money as the agile and aggressive back-row pieces that win the game. It shows the players are the same whether they are politicals wearing red white and blue, or corporates who’ve cloaked themselves in the color of money. Not that that matters to captured pawns.